This month we have an interview with a man who has won bodybuilding contests at every level from his teens through his 50′s, all while using high intensity training–none other than Mr. Dave Mastorakis.
Did you ever run into somebody who says, “That High Intensity Training stuff doesn’t work for bodybuilding–name one guy besides Mike Mentzer who ever won using it.”
Ok–how about a guy who has won over 75 bodybuilding awards at the local, state, regional, national and international level, from the teenage division all the way to the Ultra Masters (over 50) division?
That’s what Dave Mastorakis has done, all the while maintaining an unwavering commitment to High Intensity Training.
And speaking of Mike Mentzer, Dave is the guy who actually inspired Mike to become a competitive bodybuilder, when they were both teenagers.
And Dave isn’t one of these guys who is only good at posing–he’s won strength contests as well, and helped many others achieve their fitness goals as a personal trainer. He even has his own line of natural bodybuilding active wear!
Listen in and learn from the master as Dave Reveals:
How a belly dancing act led him into a 40 year bodybuilding career
How he inspired Mike Mentzer himself to start competitive bodybuilding, how they became friends, what it was like be Mike’s training partner, and his memories of their long friendship (very touching)
The nutrition book that changed his (and Mike Mentzer’s) views on nutrition
His thoughts on Arthur Jones
His experience with volume training vs. high intensity training
The commercial bias against High Intensity Training over the years, and how the top champs of the day were involved (THIS WILL FREAK YOU OUT)
His secret to making continuous strength gains in his and his client’s workouts
The best training routine he used during his career (great info for you young dudes)
Who he sends people to for nutritional advice (surprising)
And much, much more!
To hear the Dave Mastorakis interview, just click on the play arrow (the little triangle on the left) below:
So I’m going through my e-mail a couple weeks ago, pondering the question: what is my second-favorite website?
Next thing you know, I run across a very nice, complimentary e-mail:
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“Hi Dave. I vist your site and listen to some of your interviews on a regular basis and enjoy them.
I don’t know if your aware of this but there was recently a couple guys who did a 60 day experiment using Mentzer’s Training Program and diet recommenedations while video taping and blogging the whole thing a long with posting pictures and measurements of the results at theboiseexperiment.com
I just thought if you could get one or maybe both of them to agree to an interview that it would probably be pretty interesting.”
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Since I had not heard anything about this before, I went over to the website he mentioned to check it out.
I have now officially found my second-favorite website.
The Boise Experiment is the brain child of 2 guys who go by the blog names RonnieB and BigAndy. Apparently, last fall they decided to conduct a transformation experiment on themselves: they would attempt to add as much lean body mass as possible (and in BigAndy’s case, lose some body fat as well) in 60 days, using Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty program straight out of “High Intensity Training The Mike Mentzer Way”, while strictly adhering to the nutrient percentages and calorie recommendations out of the book at the same time.
That’s pretty cool right there, but the way they went about it is really cool. Like the guy said in that e-mail, they recorded, down to the last minute detail, everything they ate, each workout rep by rep, and what their impressions were every step of the way–on a daily basis.
This included video blogging, which is a picture-in-picture type deal where you see them performing their workout in the main video, and you see RonnieB in the inset video offering his thoughts on how things were going at that point in the experiment.
Really cool stuff, unlike anything I’ve seen before.
And the workout videos are very real–no fancy lights, no second takes–just these guys doing their Heavy Duty workouts, imperfections and all. Watching them brought me back mentally to a very fun time, when I first discovered High Intensity Training and threw myself into it in a similar fashion.
I can tell you without a doubt that Mike Mentzer would have been very proud of these guys, as I am. They (like many of us) patiently stuck with the program exactly as written, I’m sure dealing with the stares and under-the-breath comments of the know-it-alls at their gym–and were rewarded with OUTSTANDING RESULTS.
Check out their transformations after ONLY 9 WORKOUTS IN 60 DAYS:
RonnieB’s Before and After
BigAndy’s Before and After
All their exact before-and-after measurements, bodyweight, bodyfat percentages, etc are all there on the website, along with the workout videos and video blogs. In addition, they have a cool calorie counter on there now that they are offering FREE.
Here’s another High Intensity Training Interview with Personal Trainer and creator of www.ExerciseFraud.com, David Landau.
David is a personal trainer in south Florida who has been involved in High Intensity Training for a loooooong time. He is well known for having a HUGE collection of Arthur Jones memorabelia, and for exposing many of the fraudulent exercise practices that are prevalent in the industry today.
Listen in as David reveals:
How and why he got into training in the first place
Why a gym going out of business changed his philosophy of exercise
What he learned from, and thinks of, Ellington Darden and Arthur Jones
His “Basic Tenets” of productive training
His refreshing views on nutrition
The “seek the pain” program
His take on variety in a workout routine
A discussion of the worst exercise frauds out there today, and how they’re hurting people
What the crocodile exercise is
Which exercise fraud he’s going to expose next
And much, much more!
To hear the David Landau interview, just click on the play arrow (the little triangle on the left) below:
Did you get better today? Did you do something, anything, to improve yourself in some area of your life? I hope so.
When I worked as a Strength and Conditioning Assistant for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, everyone was expected to ask themselves that question every day-coaches, players, staff members-as a means to reaching our ultimate goal-winning the Super Bowl.
Did you do something today to move you closer to “winning your Super Bowl”-whatever important personal goal you may have in front of you?
Every day you don’t get better, you don’t stay the same, you get worse. Why? Because you’re a day older. And with regard to your fitness goals, every workout you waste in the gym using unproductive methods that don’t give you the results you’re looking for is a workout you can never get back. There are no “do-overs” in life.
What are some ways you can get better today, with regard to your health and fitness? You can do one more rep on an exercise than you did last time. You can use 5 pounds more than you did last time. You can say no when somebody offers you a donut in the morning. You can drink an extra glass of water. You can eat a fresh fruit. You can skip dessert. You can park 50 yards away from the mall entrance and walk in, instead of driving around the parking lot for 20 minutes looking for a closer space. You can sit up straighter. You can lower the weight on the last rep of your set in 8 seconds instead of 4 seconds. You can go do your scheduled High Intensity Muscle Building workout instead of going to happy hour.
What are some ways you can get better today in other areas of your life? You can tell someone you love them. You can clean your room. You can write a letter to a long lost friend. You can give someone a compliment. You can read a self-improvement book or an inspiring biography. You can learn something new. You can make an unpleasant phone call. You can confront a difficult situation. You can do something that scares you. You can complete a project you have been putting off. You can be a good example.
I encourage you to make a habit of asking yourself every evening before you retire:
“Did I get better today”?
And if you do, in fact, get better every day, it won’t be long before you win your “Super Bowl”.
To kick off our High Intensity Interview of the Month series for 2011, we will start off with the #1 most requested interviewee in the history of The High Intensity Nation–
Author, Trainer, Researcher, and friend of and co-author with the late Mike Mentzer:
Mr. John Little.
When it comes to High Intensity Training, John Little has seen and done it all. He has written over 30 books on bodybuilding, martial arts, philosophy and history, including “Max Contraction Training” (pictured above) as well as co-authoring “Body By Science” with Doug McGuff, and “High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way” and “The Wisdom Of Mike Mentzer”.
He has trained tons of people, and conducted tons of training research, at his Nautilus North training facility in Canada, and was one of bodybuilding legend Mike Mentzer’s closest friends. During our interview, I found John to be one of the smartest guys I’ve ever discussed training with, and a hell of a nice dude.
Whatever you think you know about exercise, prepare to learn a Little more as John reveals:
The movie he saw as a kid that shaped the rest of his life
The people who have influenced him the most
A detailed account of what it was like to hang out with the late, great Mike Mentzer (priceless)
The idea he got in a Greek history class that has his trainees gaining 10-30 lbs. of muscle a year
What quarter horses and clydesdales can teach us about exercise
His take on workout intensity (surprising)
What it means when you get nauseous during a workout, and his simple trick that prevents it in seconds
His views on supplements and low-carb diets
The experiment he conducted to determine the optimal recovery time between workouts (ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING-DON’T MISS THIS!)
Mike Mentzer’s run-in with a psychic
And much, much more!
To hear the John Little interview, just click on the play arrow (the little triangle on the left) below:
(P.S.–John was fighting a bad cold when we spoke, but took one for the team and did the one-hour-plus interview as scheduled anyway–please show your appreciation by leaving a comment below–thanks)
So I’m going through my e-mails the other day, and simultaneously wondering what the future of exercise will be like.
Will the Functional Dark Side take over and rule the fitness universe with the traumatic forces of evil?
Or, will we be saved by somebody taking the ball, so to say, and inventing some machines with motorized resistance, similar to “The Motivator” that Joel Waldman described in his High Intensity Interview of the Month?
And then, all of a sudden, I came across this e-mail in my inbox–and I knew The Force was with the Nation.
The E-Mail:
Hi Dave,
I thoroughly enjoy your interviews and appreciate you taking the time to conduct them.
I just wanted to let you know that somebody has “taken the ball” so to say on inventing some machines with motorized resistance similar to the Motivator Joel described.
Check out some of our videos:
Take care,
Mark Alexander
WOW. Did you see that? (And, the guy repeated what I was thinking like word for word. Weird.)
I immediately e-mailed Mark back and said:
Hi Mark,
Glad you are enjoying the site, we are working on some really cool stuff for next year (2011).
That machine looks bad ass. Where did you guys get that thing? Do you mind if I post your e-mail and that video on my site?
Thanks,
Dave Durell, MS, CCS, PTA
And this was his reply:
Hi Dave,
I have teamed up with Randy Rindfleisch, the machine inventor, to bring this line of equipment to market. The CZT-V (vertical axis machine) is ideal for the HIT practitioner that knows what he is doing; it is extremely versatile and brings the function of negative only, hyper reps, and even double negatives all a possibilities.
Yes, you are more than welcome to post any of our videos and what emails you want to your site.
Keep up the good work Dave.
Take care
Mark Alexander
President – Efficient Exercise
CEO – CZT Fitness System
Now you and I have both seen the future of exercise–and it is good.
You’re going to the gym regularly, busting your ass performing high intensity workouts. You’re sooooo motivated that you’re ready to rip the weights apart with your bare hands. You want to get bigger and stronger so bad you can taste it.
Only one problem–you’re not making any progress. You look and lift the same as you did 6 months ago.
Why is that?
Well, there is one legitimate reason-you’ve done everything right for a few years, and you have now reached the limit of your genetic potential for building muscle beyond normal levels. You’ve reached you’re pinnacle. You can’t get any better, no matter what you do, and you are now lifting just to maintain what you have.
If that’s the case, you have no reason to be dissatisfied, because you look, feel and function fantastically.
But if that’s not the case (and I have met very few people who believe that they have reached that point), then there’s a reason.
Just like there’s a reason for everything in the Universe, based on the Law of Causality, a.k.a. the Law of Cause and Effect, there’s a reason for your lack of satisfying progress, and the number of possibilities are not infinite.
In fact, we can pretty much boil it down to one of 5 things.
The Top 5 Reasons for Lack of Training Progress:
1. Intensity is too low.
Intensity is the stimulus that triggers muscle growth and increased strength. Intensity means the percentage of momentary effort being exerted. If the intensity of each set is insufficient, increases in muscular size and strength will not be stimulated. Since nobody is too sure what the least amount of intensity required really is, and because of the difficulty in measuring intensity, the best way to insure you have passed over every possible growth threshold is to exert 100% intensity-that is, train to failure on every set (excluding warmups).
2. Duration is too high.
Intensity and duration are inversely proportional-that is, the higher the intensity is, the lower the duration of the workout must be, whether you want it to be or not. Just as nobody on earth can sprint all-out for a mile, nobody on earth can lift weights with 100% intensity for long periods of time.
If you are training to failure on every work set, take a careful look at your workout duration. Is there too much overlap present in your routine? Are you training the same muscle groups repeatedly with different movements unnecessarily? Can you eliminate anything?
Remember, the more you do, the harder it is for your body to recover and overcompensate. Instead of asking yourself “how much exercise can I tolerate?”, ask yourself instead “how little exercise do I require”?
3. Frequency is too high.
If your workouts are intense enough and brief enough, the next step is to make sure you are leaving enough time in-between workouts to allow for both recovery and overcompensation.
When you get finished with a high intensity workout, you don’t feel the same as you did before you started. You feel exhausted-something was “used up”. Think of it as digging a hole in your recovery ability.
The first thing you have to do is fill in that hole. Once things are back to their pre-workout levels-the hole is filled in-then, and only then, can you over-compensate and build some new muscle on top.
All of this takes time. If you don’t allow sufficient time in between workouts, you short-circuit this process.
How much time you need between workouts is an individual thing. I would say that 2-3 days between workouts, which equates to working out about twice a week, is an absolute minimum of days between workouts. If the intensity and duration are right, and you’re still not making progress, add an extra rest day between workouts until progress is apparent.
4. Not Enough Sleep.
Your body’s preferred time to rebuild and grow is while you are sleeping. That’s why babies and teenagers sleep a lot-because those are the times in people’s lives when they are going through heavy growth periods. If your training is intense enough, brief enough, and infrequent enough, maybe you just need and extra hour or two of sleep every day.
5. Insufficient Nutrition.
Food provides the building materials needed for new muscle tissue, and for the energy required to perform high intensity workouts. Make sure you are consuming a well-balanced diet with sufficient calories for your daily maintenance needs, plus a little extra to provide for increased muscle tissue.
Properly balancing these 5 factors is what makes training challenging, but it’s not as complicated as a lot of people make it out to be. If you think in terms of principles first, then figure out the specifics, it will all come together for you.
So remember the 5 principles of getting bigger and stronger:
And that’s 50% off for the ENTIRE 6-component system:
Component #1: The Training Manual–explains the entire system in detail, including fully illustrated exercise descriptions and printable workout cards.
Component #2: Downloadable MP3 Audio–go over every detail of the High Intensity Muscle Building program and training philosophy with your headphones or in your car.
Component #3: Nutrition Guide–helps you cut through all the hype, misinformation, and false claims about nutrition, and provides you with the basic facts you need to know and apply to get the most out of your High Intensity Muscle Building program.
Component #4: Unlimited Access to the “Video Vault”–Live-action videos to teach and inspire you, and take all the guesswork out of how to perform the workouts correctly (very hard to do from pictures alone).
Component #5: 12 months of the High Intensity Nation E-Newsletter–Stay motivated, entertained, and educated with up-to-date info on muscle building and strength training, delivered right to your e-mail in-box every month.
Component #6: 8-Week E-mail Coaching Program–Now you can have me as your personal coach, right by your side, no matter where you live-helping you every step of the way on your muscle building journey. You will get my private “coaching clients only” e-mail address to e-mail me as often as needed during your first 8 weeks on the program.
WHEW!
That’s a lot of stuff…and it’s ALL YOURS when you try my entire system for 50% off.
Go here and claim your copy before they’re all gone!
Thanks again and Happy Holidays,
Dave Durell, MS, CCS, PTA
P.S.-Don’t forget, the High Intensity Muscle Building System comes with a 60-day money back guarantee, so it’s risk-free-really kind of makes it a no brainer.
Our High Intensity Interview this month features the youngest Mr. America ever, Casey Viator.
In case you didn’t know, Casey Viator was one of the greatest bodybuilders in history, and a guy many people associate with High Intensity Training. In 1971 he won the Teenage Mr. America, Jr. Mr. America, and Mr. America, all at the age of 19, becoming the youngest person ever to do that.
He went on to a very successful pro career, winning 3 IFBB Grand Prix Championships, and placing 3rd in the ultimate pro contest, the Mr. Olympia.
Check out Casey in the Mr. Olympia contest!
Of course, in High Intensity Training circles, Casey is also known for being one of the first, and most successful, students of Arthur Jones.
I have known Casey for about 7 years now; we trained at the same gyms for a long time, and we’re actually neighbors. I can say from my own first hand experience that Casey is a great guy, a freakin’ gold mine of training knowledge and experience, still huge, and has the funniest Arthur Jones stories ever.
Casey does not do audio interviews, but was gracious enough to take time away from his extremely busy on-line training business (more info at the end of the interview) to answer my interview questions.
So enjoy this rare treat–an authentic, no-holds-barred interview with bodybuilding legend Casey Viator.
Q- How did you become interested in training, and when did you start?
A- I started when I was 13 years old. I learned most of my techniques from my uncle , who was into training and in his 30′s. The rest I learned form the muscle magazines. That`s all we had back then.
Q- How did you train when you first started, and what kind of results did you get?
A- Mostly volume with lots of intensity. I trained around 16 sets per body part and lots of running and biking.
My results were instant, and I was competing and winning at the age of 15. I was 175 pounds at 15 years old, and my protein intake was very high, around 200 grams of fresh protein a day. Lots of milk and milk products.
Q-How did you first get interested in High Intensity Training (H.I.T.)?
A- I feel I was doing HIT before I was introduced to Arthur Jones and Nautilus. I was training with high intensity with lots of volume, which makes it twice as hard. I knew I was over-training, but winning contest was first priority at that time in my life. I made a bunch of training mistakes in the beginning of my training, but corrected them by the age of 19.
Q-What was it like being trained by Arthur Jones?
A- Arthur was a great influence , as far as training goes. He showed me that I was training with way too many sets, so I toned my sets down. I was stubborn back then, and agreed that if doing less sets would help me gain muscle, I would stay with HIT. If I did’nt make gains on less sets, highly intense sets, I would go back to my original training style. I was wrong and Artur`s ideas on HIT helped me gain tremendously. And without injuries . That`s about the time I started working with Nautilus and Arthur was there for every workout, 1 year before the 1971 AAU Mr. America.
Q-I understand you were friends with Mike Mentzer-what was your relationship like, and what are your memories of Mike?
A- Mike and I were training partners for awhile. He was a great motivator and Ray Mentzer was also. We pushed very hard and usually drew a crowd when we trained at Golds in Santa Monica. I saw Mike eat a whole stick of butter at supper one night (cold), he said he liked it. I told him to at least put some bread on that butter. He was a funny guy.
Q-Do you still workout today, and if so, what changes, if any, have you made in your training program?
A- I still train hard, 3 days a week. I’ve toned down my intensity and weight poundages. I try to practice good form and work on a pump, along with plenty of cardio work.
Q-During your competitive bodybuilding career, how did you motivate yourself for your workouts?
A- I would say to myself, (My competitors are training and dieting really hard.) I will not let them beat me. And I would switch into high gear and get all my prep work done.
Q- What kinds of psychological/mental changes and/or benefits have taken place as a result of your training?
A- I`ve learned to listen to my body, like if an exercise hurts try another combination. Same with diet, before you put something in your mouth ask: Will this help my progress or hurt my progress.
Q-What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you in the gym?
A- I was getting ready for a Mr. Olympia. And I was so hungry I ate a whole gallon of strawberry ice cream before training. 15 minutes into the workout, I got sick and ran outside and puked my brains out. The owner of the gym commented that I was fertilizing the plants outside, which brought the whole gym into laughter. Plus ,I did`nt need the extra calories, so I was happy I did puke. We had great times back then.
Q-What types of programs do you have available if someone wanted to get more training advice from you, and how can people get more
information on your programs?
A- I provide both HIT and solid volume training schedules . That fit your body style and your training level. All my programs are hand made for each of my clients to reach their goals. They can contact me at cviator@mindspring.com or go to my website, www.caseyviator.com and click on the personal training section for more information.
Q-Do you have any parting comments for the readers?
A- Keep on pumping, and make sensible training a constant part of your life.
World’s Hardest Exercises
70 “FUN” ways to increase the intensity of any workout
by Jim Kielbaso, MS, CSCS
Jim Kielbaso’s opening sentence sets the tone right away in his new e-book, World’s Hardest Exercises: “Welcome to the world of incredibly difficult (almost stupid) training”.
If you are the sensitive type, dislike challenges, or prefer avoiding hard work, this book is not for you.
This is also not a classic, 1-set-to-failure, high intensity training book. If you are seeking “Heavy Duty Part III”, you will not find it here.
But if you are truly a citizen of the High Intensity Nation, and embrace the spirit of the High Intensity lifestyle, this book will be a welcome addition to your training library.
This is a training manual Arthur Jones himself would be proud of–because it involves, as he used to say, exactly what you need to get results: “outright hard work”.
Do you believe:
That after a leg workout, you should feel like you just climbed the Empire State
Building with your car tied to your back?
Or that if you have never vomited from doing one set of barbell curls, you don’t know the meaning of hard work?
Arthur Jones did. And so does Jim Kielbaso.
And that’s what you get in World’s Hardest Exercises: dozens of specific protocols designed to stimulate your muscles and test your strength of will.
After a brief introduction, Jim gets right into the meat of the book, offering a collection of brutally hard activities that issue the ultimate smackdown to your body, mind and will.
Not all of the offerings are weight training exercises. Jim has included some bodyweight movements, running activities, and some very creative stuff using unconventional equipment, such as sandbags, floor mats, barbell plates, household items, and other human beings.
Some emphasize strength, some will target your stamina; but I promise you everything in the book will challenge you, and make you mentally tougher.
There is something for everybody here, but of course not every single exercise in the book will not appeal to every single reader.
This is a buffet line of super-hard workout movements-you pick and choose which way you want to crush yourself, and you can change your mind and pick something different every time you go.
Jim recommends you do not do all the exercises at once, or do the same one every workout. You can create a whole High Intensity workout from these exercises, or add them as “finishers” to any workout, to crank up the intensity of any workout to a new level.
To summarize, this is not a book on training theory, and is not training philosophy specific. It just gives you a lot of ways to add variety, intensity, and a great challenge to whatever workout program you might be currently using. I highly recommend it.
Recently I decided to put Jim’s techniques to the test, and created a High Intensity style metabolic workout by selecting a few exercises from the manual.
Since the workout would involve higher reps and shorter (or no) rest periods between sets, I adjusted my weights accordingly from what I usually use in my High Intensity Muscle Building workouts.
I expected, and welcomed, a challenging workout; and that is exactly what I got, but it was waaaaay more brutal than I anticipated! It quickly became apparent that I was in for some manhood-testing muscular devastation. I was still feeling the effects, and walking funny, days later.
Check out this video me getting crushed with a “World’s Hardest Exercise” workout:
P.S.–As of the time I’m writing this, Jim is currently including some really cool FREE bonuses with World’s Hardest Exercises, including his “Manual Resistance Training Start-Up Guide”, 30 days of complete access to his members-only website, and a bunch of sample workouts. I have no idea how long these bonuses will be available.
P.P.S.–Worlds Hardest Exercises also comes with a 60 day, no questions asked, money-back guarantee, so if it wasn’t challenging enough for you, you can get your money back. But if you do the exercises right, I seriously doubt that will happen.
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